Devialet D-Premier Integrated Amp/DAC

Alan Sircom, Editor of Hi-Fi+, has posted a review of the Devialet D-Premier integrated amp/DAC (£10,000) at AVGuide. His conclusions:

Analogue sources fare tolerably well, but they should be considered ‘legacy’ on this amp. The turntable input is no match for a good separate phono stage, but it’s quiet and dynamic. The line stage performs similarly well – you can do better using a dedicated analogue preamplifier, but if you are using a digital source, the digital input of the D-Premier is going to be way better than most analogue preamps.

This last is an indicator of how you will react to the D-Premier. It largely depends on your stance toward audio in general – are you looking forwards or back? This isn’t a test and there are no right answers, it’s just a bald statement of fact. If your tastes lie with turntables and tubes, the D-Premier is something that commands respect and admiration rather than passion and wild hand gestures. Also, if you buy audio by the square yard, equating ‘big’ with ‘good’, one big pizza box – no matter how shiny – is never going to convince you to part with half a room full of heatsinks.

Not everyone feels this way. There are many who have found their musical happy place within the digital domain and the better than domain sounds, the happier they get. The D-Premier will leave them ecstatic. In fact, for those people, the search is – for now – over. This is as good as it gets… it really is the real deal.

You can read the full review here.